


Ending Zone

by redlittleowl



Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Everybody Dies, Gen, fuck you Holy Grail, let's try this again shall we?, timelines on infinite repeat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 15:21:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1987872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redlittleowl/pseuds/redlittleowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is the first time, it /is/, he tells himself. He never knew her before. This is the first time they have ever met, and the strain of summoning him and anchoring him and trying to find the Grail is draining her much too quickly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ending Zone

**Author's Note:**

> This work assumes quite a few things. The most important assumption to know is that the Grail has complete power/control over its own timeline.

It is the second time he has been summoned like _this_ , to _this_ world, and it is completely different. Too much has changed, this time.

He knows it’s the same universe as last time, he _knows_ , he can feel it—he can feel it every time. It is always the same universe. It is almost never the same world.

This one is wrong. It is rank with iron, and brass, and human chemicals, and the skies are permanently darkened with industrial smog. It chokes him, until he sees who summoned him.

He feels as though he should know her; his blood is singing, rejoicing in her presence, even as that very same blood shrinks away in the knowledge that they have never met and therefore do not know each other. They cannot know each other.

The world would have ended if they knew each other. So, they do not know each other.

Not yet. Maybe never. Not now. Never here.

This world is wrong. It screams of too many people and whispers of too few supplies. Food is rotting away as water evaporates into nothingness. Humanity ruins itself with its inventions, and people continue to die for naught.

Someone, somewhere along the way, made a mistake.

The Holy Grail does not appear. The woman he-knows-he-does-not-know-he-knows searches for it, and he searches with her. She tries to remain calm, and she mostly succeeds. He can still feel her anxiety and mental strain worrying away at her mind, and eventually her sanity.

He admires her for her strength of will. It is the first time in this world he has found someone with such strength.

It is the first time, it _is_ , he tells himself. He never knew her before. This _is_ the first time they have ever met, and the strain of summoning him and anchoring him and trying to find the Grail is draining her much too quickly.

He still needs her to anchor him. She cannot anchor herself as the strain eats away at her, and this is the first time it has ever happened.

The world would have ended had this happened before. This _has_ to be the first time. This cannot be a cycle, this must be the first time, they have never met before.

They have never met before, and yet, out of all the seven Servants she could have summoned, she summoned him.

They have never met before. She has almost convinced herself of it as well. He can see it on her face and in her eyes, whenever her sanity briefly carries her back and away from the brink he cannot stop her from going over.

They have never met before, and she is losing herself and him in this search for some holy relic they now doubt will ever appear. The others have started to search as well, and that all-consuming, heart-constricting knowledge, that heaviness in the air when another team approaches them, is starting to wear her down as well.

He is slipping with her.

Finally, _finally_ , when the Grail appears, somehow he knows it is too late. They are the last to the scene, and the battle has already begun. Her eyes go wide, and she looks at him, something akin to understanding flashing in her eyes. He recognizes it.

He recognizes _her_.

She lets him go, _again_ , cuts him free from all obligations to her except for the fact that she is his _anchor_ now, and he draws all energy from her. He freezes.

There is too much energy. She is giving him _too much_. She is no longer living for herself anymore. She is no longer even _living_ , only a conduit now for the energy that keeps him summoned in this world. They cannot break their gazes away from each other.

And then something inside her short-circuits from the massive amount of energy she never should have been able to handle in the first place, and she collapses. He catches her, just as he always has before.

As he has every time before, when she summoned him and it turned out this way. She tries to tell him something, but there is blood in her lungs instead of oxygen. She settles for smiling at him instead, and lifts a trembling hand to his face in order to wipe away the tears that are gathering in the corners of his eyes.

They will try again, because this world is ending, and their cycle is over again. He cradles her in his arms, and tucks her head against his chest, and closes his eyes against the tears she could not wipe away before her strength failed her as the Grail erases time and starts them over again, rushing them backwards to the beginning.

He starts to forget.

There is a dying woman in his arms, and he finds that he cannot remember the color of her eyes. The sadness he feels then cuts right through him, for some reason. He doesn’t know why she’s important, or if she even _is_.

He awakens in a world where nature abounds, and long grasses sway around his prone form. He sits up to look around, and a woman is standing a few feet away from him, smiling and holding out a hand to help him up.

He feels as though he should know her, but that cannot be right.

Surely the world would have ended if they knew each other.


End file.
